Not a man of words
by Fantasy Cat
Summary: Walter has never been good with words. He struggles with a letter he writes to Peter hoping to explain a few things, mainly about his mother, and to warn him of the man he will become because of his own work. Based on 1.04 The Arrival.


Okay I hope this isnt too long and boring, and no this is not the comedy fic I'm still working on. This one has been on my mind since around episode 1X04 and is inspired the by scene in the FBI building where Walter yelled at Peter about his mother.

**Disclaimer:** Characters are all J.J. Abrams'

**Spoilers:** 1x04 "The Arrival"

* * *

_Dearest son,_

Walter looked at the two words he had written and decided to scratch them out. Starting a letter off like that would sound a bit too silly to Peter. Then again, anything that came out of the mouth of Walter Bishop always sounded utterly ridiculous to Peter.

_Peter,_

He looked it over. That sounded much better.

_You and I both know that I can do many things. I can memorize the most advanced equations. I can zap the minds of living plants and animals for the sake of good science. I plan to eventually make 20 different variations of crème soda once the machine is set up in the lab. Yet, I am fully aware of my inability to speak to you about personal matters._

_Between Fibonnaci and the periodic table, I have thought of other things, things that I know you and I can share a wavelength with. I have spoken to you about our ability to share one mind. You have wondered still how it was that the location of the cylinder entered your mind without me ever telling a soul where I hid it. That is still something I still cannot explain to you as of yet. Rest assured, however that my intentions for us to have this ability to share thoughts, fears, hopes, and dreams were only meant for good._

Walter took in a deep sigh. The argument was still fresh in his mind and now he understand why Peter was so mad at him that one day…

_I am…starting to regret it…I wanted to share with you my gifts, my genius, my world with the only human being that mattered to me and that was you. I felt you were destined to become me. Perhaps I was wrong to put that kind of pressure on you in the most unusual way. I only wanted for my kin and I to connect in a way that no father and son alike would have ever connected._

_Your anger with me is just. I have only cared for you but now I understand why you turned away from me when I spoke of her. It was because you thought I forgot her. But I could never forget her, Peter. Never. You of all people should know that. Do you think I have transformed your mother into a heartless commandeering b, sorry, you know what I mean. Yes I did say something of the sort only because she was frustrating me, scorning me, belittling me. I could not see past the surface with her. A voice of reason, and what a voice she was. It was lovely I remember, and a fine specimen she was._ (Walter squinted because the last few words almost sounded a bit too dirty to him.) _It was one of the things that drew me to her when we first met in college._

Walter knew his mind was wondering off. He had to get to the point sooner or later.

_She was interest in my work. She was almost as devoted to it as I was. That was why I let her into my world to begin with, Peter._

_Sometime in your younger boyhood years, she began to act differently. She began to question things that I did and criticized any experiment I was proud of. I thought it was to anger me. Eventually she took anything I said and turned it into an argument about you, which I didn't understand then. It worsened until you were as angered with me as she was. It was too much for me to handle._

_I'm starting to remember things, Peter. My last day in this lab, all those years ago, you and your mother, both of your frustration with me was fresh in my mind. I can't help but think whatever happened in here was meant to happen. A certain scientific karma that has yet to be evaluated._

_I come now to what I said. I stood by what I said in that room only because it was all I could see. I was insistent that that was all that you saw too. But now, I do not know. I am beginning to doubt myself. Perhaps it was not your mother, but rather I who had changed. Did you think I was a bit hard on her, Peter? Hmm…maybe I am stating too much of an obvious question. I thought the other night while sleeping in the tub about the last soccer game I went to see you at as a boy. Then it occurred to me. I never been to one…not one. Even then, was I much more devoted to being in this lab than in our house? Was I more devoted to caring for the cows in my lab than I was to feeding Rufus?_

_How foolish I was to not realize your mother's frustration with me. Her anger with me, psychologically speaking, was only driven by a desire to protect you…from me. I see now why you speak to the others as if I am dangerous. I did desire to cut open a man's head after all. Oh dear, look at me. I have rambled on and still I fail to get to the point of this. Well here it goes. You are me, Peter. Well of course you already know that but you are more me than I wish you were now. A part of me wishes to take myself out of you because I fear for your future._

_At your age I would deny such things as well. I wish you would keep denying them, Peter. I fear that you will become more like me and then you will become obsessed with the things that labeled me, as you said it, "mad". I fear that such an incident like the one that happened here will result from you stepping into my slippers. What will I do then? You are becoming smarter everyday, Peter. As fearful as I am of you inheriting my gene of blowing up innocent beings and wandering the streets at night without recollection of where you are, they are only minor fears. You will inherit everything about me, Peter, and there is one thing you shall get from me that I shall most certainly regret…_

His writing hand was shaking. The pencil he wrote with was becoming more like a needle on a lie detector, making Walter sweat.

_I've seen the way you look at her, Peter. It's the same way I once looked at your mother. I once believed in fate and destiny because of the scientific implications that come from circumstance. It is of divine circumstance that one woman took me out of St. Claire's to bring me back to my work, and to you, Peter. A fine addition to the Bishop clan she would make, and you seem to agree by the looks of things, yes? It would be madness if she does not swoon over you like your mother did when I spoke to her the names of all 28 Chinese constellations and each of their 23 asterisms by heart. Now there's an idea to consider._

_And should you two, well…become, intimate? Should I use such a term? I would be overjoyed but also remorseful for it to have happened. Not soon, but years from now, many years I hope (though none at all would be better), you will become more like your father and everything I have explained in this difficult manuscript will come into fruition. You will become obsessed. You will become forgetful. You will become mad. Mainly, you will become me and by doing so you will forsake the ones you have loved like I have. Sadly, to know that you may one day abandon a wonderful, beautiful, and intelligent woman as her in the same matter as I have abandoned your mother…I couldn't possibly..._

Walter didn't realize his eyes were watering with tears as he thought of this terrible thing that was doomed to happen to his own son, all because of his own work.

_I did not mean for it, Peter. I did not mean for any of it. So I implore you, greatly to keep correcting me, to keep belitting me, to keep denying me, as you have done. Hate me if it must come to that. You must do what you can to not absorb who I am in mind and in spirit. If you reject me long enough, there is a chance of you avoiding the future that lies ahead, that I had created for you so very long ago. There is a chance for you to avoid hurting the ones you love if you are determined enough to not become me._

_I loved your mother, Peter. I have never regretted having her…or you in my life but if you are to finally understand me, if you are to finally become a follower of my work, and if your mind should evolved into my own in its current form, I will most certainly regret what I did to you all those years ago, especially if it does become my dreams for you that result in the pain of others._

For the longest time Walter sat there at the table having been in that lab alone and quiet, with only his gadgets and his thoughts for hours. His hand grasped his own face as if wishing to tear it off. Things would have been so much easier for him if he could just tell Peter what he just wrote. He would not be feeling like this, if he had only seen the truth before he said those harsh words about the one he abandoned to raise Peter on her own.

"It's here, where do you want it?"

Walter's despair began to fade when he saw Astrid enter the lab with some deliverymen carrying a large metal device. Immediately Walter's facial expression turned to that child-like fascination that suited him well and he went over to the wall where a table stood and cleared it out. "Right here would be absolutely astounding."

A couple of hours of impatience and anticipation later, Walter and Astrid finally stood infront of it: Walter's own soda-fountain machine…one that was surely made to make sure certain mistakes would never have to repeat themselves again.

"Let's take her for a test drive shall we?" Walter said rubbing his hands.

"What are we making first?" asked Astrid.

"Oh, I think I am in the mood for a red crème soda with a pinch of orange flavoring and topped a whipping decorated in caramel syrup."

Neither Walter nor Astrid had any clue how to start the machine. Walter gathered his ingredients for the sweet treat while Astrid tried to read the directions in the manual. All of the sudden there was a sudden roar and an unusual liquid began to spew out of the machine, mostly in Astrid's direction. Walter tried to start the machine himself and failed miserably.

"Make it stop!" cried Astrid.

In a panic, Walter tried to stop the machine by messing with a small hose only causing the liquid to spew pass them over at the very table where Walter's letter rested. The liquid was on everything now.

Eventually, Astrid forced her soaked way through to finally shut it off. Gene was heard mooing and shaking off the splash back he got from Walter's faulty error.

"You couldn't wait?" Astrid asked him as she wrung out her clothes.

Walter didn't respond because he was looking at the papers on the table that were soaked. He took in his hands the pile of paper that he unintentionally destroyed. His letter to Peter. Nothing more than a wet clump that fell out of his grasp and back onto the table's surface.

Astrid saw the morose look on his face and didn't feel right to yell at the old man as she had always been tempted to do whenever he brought about such chaos. Many unusual things made Walter happy and to see him unusually upset like this was something unfamiliar to her.

She approached him with a hand on his shoulder and said "oh…I'm sorry. Was it something very important?"

Walter was breaking inside but he was determined not to do so infront of this woman. He kept his silence, which felt very awkward to Astrid.

"Can't you just remember what it said and write it all over again? You are good with that."

The truth was that Walter could remember many things: his experiments, the formulas he invented for the 20 different varieties of crème soda, the skeletal anatomy of nearly every fish in the sea. Already he had forgotten what he wrote on that paper. What a pity. The letter, he thought, was the breakthrough he needed to finally warn Peter of the future he feared for him. It was lost now, much like the name of the woman in the room with him, to his own madness.

Instead of mourning, he turned to Astrid with a smile on his face with the hopes of shielding from her the pain and frustration he had to keep contained.

"Thank you for the kind compliment, my dear. It is nothing to worry about. Of course I can rewrite it. I've never known a single piece of data or calculation to escape this old man's mind after all."


End file.
